"Believe me, we were not trying to understand the subject," said Captain
Vidall; "the most that a mere man can do is to appreciate it."

"There are some things that are hidden from the struggling mind of man,
and are revealed unto babes and the mothers of babes," said General
Armour gravely, as, reaching out his hands, he took the child from the
mother's arms, kissed it full upon the lips, and added: "Men do not
understand women, because men's minds have not been trained in the same
school. When once a man has mastered the very alphabet of motherhood,
then he shall have mastered the mind of woman; but I, at least, refuse to
say that I do not understand, from the stand-point of modern cynicism."

"Ah, General, General!" said Lambert, "we have lost the chivalric way of
saying things, which belongs to your generation."

By this time the wife had reached the door. She turned and held out her
arms for the child. General Armour came and placed the boy where he had
found it, and, with eyes suddenly filling, laid both his hands upon
Lali's and they clasped the child, and said: "It is worth while to have
lived so long and to have seen so much." Her eyes met his in a wistful,
anxious expression, shifted to those of her husband, dropped to the
cheeks of the child, and with the whispered word, which no one, not even
the general, heard, she passed from the room, the nurse following her.

Perhaps some of the most striking contrasts are achieved in the least
melodramatic way. The sudden incursion of the child and its mother into
the group, the effect of their presence, and their soft departure,
leaving behind them, as it were, a trail of light, changed the whole
atmosphere of the room, as though some new life had been breathed into
it, charged each mind with new sensations, and gave each figure new